“His tools,” Branna speculated, “perhaps passed down from father to son, or mother to son or daughter. Passed down to him, and then used for the dark. Though we can’t say if his sire didn’t dabble in such, or why he would’ve chosen the cave for his own.”
“He might’ve been a guardian,” Meara suggested. “Someone with power who guarded the demon or whatever it is, and kept it imprisoned.”
“True enough,” Branna agreed. “Whether or not Cabhan came from light or dark, or something between them, he made his choice.”
“There’s more,” Fin told her. “A wax figure of a woman, bound hand and foot with black cloth, kneeling as in supplication.”
“Sorcha.” Branna shook her head. “His obsession with her started long ago. But he could never bind her or bring her to her knees.”
“Nearly eight hundred years is a long time to hold an obsession or a grudge,” Iona pointed out. “I’d say it’s been madness that started long ago.”
“I’d agree.”
“And more,” Fin said again. “The figure had blood smeared on its belly, between its legs.”
Carefully, Branna set her spoon down. “She lost a child, early that winter. She miscarried, and was never fully well again. She had some terrible illness she couldn’t heal. Tearing pains in the belly.”
“He killed her child?” Even with centuries of distance, Iona’s eyes filled. “Inside her? Could he do that?”
“I don’t know.” Shaken, Branna rose, got wine for herself and brought the bottle to the table. “If she didn’t guard against it, in just the right way? If he found some way to . . . She had three children to tend to, and her husband off with the men of their clan. Cabhan hounding her. She may have given him some vulnerable spot to use, had a moment when she wasn’t fully vigilant.”
“We will be.” Fin touched a hand to hers. “We’ll give him nothing, and we’ll take all. This is yet more he must answer for.”
“She was grieving. You can hear her tears in her book when she wrote of the loss. Yes,” Branna said quietly. “He must answer for this, and for all.”
17
SHE INCREASED HER EFFORTS. IT COULDN’T BE RUSHED—no, working with a lethal mix couldn’t be hurried. But Branna spent every minute she could on concocting the poison.
Whoever from her circle spent time in her workshop took on a task—magickal or otherwise. She herself rarely went out, beyond a walk through her winter gardens to clear her head of formulas and spells and poisons.
Even on those brief walks, Branna obsessed whether five drops of tincture from the angel’s trumpet were too much or four too little. Should the crushed berries be freshly used, or allowed to steep in their juices?
/> “It matters,” she muttered, half to herself as she meticulously lined up the jars for the day’s attempt. “One drop off, and we start again.”
“You said the four drops didn’t work yesterday, so do the five,” Connor suggested.
“And if it should be six?” Frustrated, she stared at the jars as if she could will them to tell her the secret. “Or is the other recipe I found the true one, the one that calls for five death cap mushrooms, taken from under an oak?”
“The more poison the better, if you’re asking me.”
“It can’t be more or less. It’s not like cooking up a kitchen-sink soup.” Though she heard the testiness in her own voice, she simply couldn’t smooth it out. “It must be right, Connor, and I feel this may be our only chance. If we fail, at best we have to wait another year before trying again. At worst, the demon finds a way to shield himself when he finds we’ve a way to attack it.”
“You’re fretting far too much, Branna. It’s not your way to fret and second-guess.”
He was right, of course, and fretting, she admitted as she pressed her fingers to her eyes, tended to block more than open.
“I feel an urgency, more than I have. A knowing, Connor, this must be the time, or our time is done. And the thought we might only go on slapping at Cabhan as we have, for our lifetime, only hold him off until we pass this duty to the next three? It’s not bearable. You’ll have children with Meara. Would you want to weigh one or more of them with this?”
“I wouldn’t, no. Of course, I wouldn’t. We won’t fail.”
He put his hands on her shoulders, rubbed them. “Ease your mind a bit. You’ll block your own instincts—and they’re a strength—if you pour in all this doubt.”
“This will be the third time I’ve tried creating the brew. The doubt’s there for a reason.”
“Then put it aside. This recipe, that recipe, put that aside as well. What do you think—how does it feel to you? Maybe it’s not like throwing together a soup, but you’ve been mixing potions since you were four.”
Deliberately, he closed the books, knowing full well by now she could recite it all by rote in any case. “What do you say—not just from the head this time, but from the belly?”